China Launches Nip/Tuck Crackdown

This post has been changed since it was first published. See “correction” below.

China is tightening oversight of its cosmetic surgery industry after one of the country’s aspiring pop stars died while undergoing a facelift.

CCTV.COM/AFP/Getty Images

This handout photo released by Chinese website CCTV.com on Nov. 25, 2010 shows Chinese pop singer Wang Bei, 24, a former contestant on China’s answer to “American Idol”, who died on November 15 during “facial bone-grinding surgery” in the central city of Wuhan.

The Ministry of Health in a media briefing Friday said it will standardize surgical practices to promote safer development of the industry, according to a report from state-owned Xinhua news.

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Wang Bei, a former contestant on China’s reality TV show “Super Girl,” was undergoing facial reconstruction in Hebei province’s capital city Wuhan when her windpipe filled with blood, causing her to suffocate to death.

Demand for cosmetic surgery in China is booming in step with the growing pressure to look perfect. The country performed the world’s second highest number of procedures in 2009, behind the United States, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

As wealth has mounted in China, so has the desire to maintain a youthful profile or to appear as picturesque as the models from the Chinese versions of Vogue. Some recent college grads have even resorted to surgery in hopes improving their chances of getting jobs.

The top five surgical procedures performed in China last year included breast implants, liposuction, eyelid lifts, nose jobs and tummy tucks, according to the ISAPS. A surgery known as blepharoplasty has become popular with Asian women, as they attempt to create a double fold in their eyelids, making the eyes appear rounder.

Periodic crackdowns on back-alley or bargain surgeries attempt to keep the emerging industry in check. In 2006, a woman in Guangdong province won a legal battle with a clinic that used a toxic gel in her breast implants. She was granted 36,000 yuan, or roughly $4,500, in compensation.

An estimated three million people go under the knife for cosmetic reasons every year in China, including non-Chinese in search of low-cost lip enhancement, creating a $2.2 billion industry last year, according to Xinhua, citing statistics from the Chinese Association of Plastics and Aesthetics.

Despite the rise of the industry, problems are rampant and point to a need for more qualified medical staff and regulatory measures, Xinhua cited Zhang Mao, the Deputy Health Minister, as saying.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post mistakenly referred to the singer Wang Bei as a past winner of the “Super Girls” reality TV show and one of the country’s “biggest pop stars.” She was a contestant in 2005, but did not win. A typo in the original post also misidentified Wuhan as the capital of Hebei Province; it is the capital of Hubei Province. Thanks to readers for pointing out the errors.

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